My name is Liz. I need direction. I overuse commas. My house is a mess, my hair needs a trim, and I wish I had a dog: It's fun here, you'll see!
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Louis and the extremely talented Genevieve Artadi (sorry ladies, they’re dating) recently did a cover of Britney Spears’ “3.” They shot it as a video song, meaning that as each instrument is recorded for the final audio track, the player is visually recorded, so that the resulting music video is an accurate representation of what you are hearing. No lip-syncing, air-guitar, or trickery of any kind.
They really do a great job of punching up this song. In the words of the YouTube User SeanDuncanMusic: “dude louis cole is so legit on the drums.” I agree, Sean. He is so legit. Enjoy:
As I’m sure you know, my brother is a talented artist (see this page’s banner for evidence). I’m less talented, but still pretty amazing. I recently unearthed these two fine drawings that we did using Claris Works on my old, gray, rectangle of a Macintosh laptop. I say that “we” did them, because I cannot remember who is responsible for what. Ready to be wowed? I give you drawing #1- “Car Dude.”
Where we got the “car” part from will forever remain a mystery. As will the question of what the eff is happening with that man’s (?) hands. Are they knives? Or merely deformed, yet soft, fleshy growths? His legs look to be functional, as do his eyes and perpetually screaming hexagonal mouth. “But the man has no nose!” you are crying. “Doesn’t that make it difficult to breathe?” Good question! It would make it difficult to breathe, but the fact is the man has no body and therefore no lungs with which to breathe. Don’t cry for him- look at his luxuriant head of hair! He’s fine.
And now for Drawing #2- “Ninja Kitty.”
This was either drawn by Salvador Dali or my brother. The face makes an excellent argument for Dali, as this horrible creature appears to be melting, AND has a clock for an eye. I also like the square mouth that opens into a Tron-like world. Although, the Kitty’s single whisker is an argument for Louie’s work. The other reason I believe it may have been my brother (and not a surrealist painter who died in 1989) is the presence of a prominent butt. Yes, folks, I’m afraid those two circles are the Ninja Kitty’s buttocks. … Alright, this is definitely Louie’s creation. We’ll have him committed right away.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all the through the house, my brother and I were trying decide what to do with this giant hunk of gingerbread dough that we’d made the previous night.
Originally the plan was to make a basic gingerbread house, but we soon realized that was stupid. “An aircraft carrier!” suggested Louis. “What about a gingerbread tall ship?” I asked. We laughed, and then each spent the next 25 seconds attempting to mentally construct sea-going gingerbread vessels. “Nah…We don’t have the capabilities,” was the general consensus. Then Louis had a stroke of genius: A head.
Yep. That was the answer. Here’s how we did it:
STEP 1: Select two bowls over which you will mold the dough into two halves of a head. (Pyrex works.)
STEP 2: Roll dough out, and drape over buttered Pyrex bowl; Trim edges.
STEP 3: Ask a master craftsman (in this case, my brother) to lovingly carve a face into the dough.
STEP 4: Stand back and admire the tortured face of your gingerbread person.
STEP 5: Bake the poor screaming fellow at 350º for 20 minutes.
STEP 6: Allow to cool before removing face from bowl.
STEP 7: When the thing still won’t come off the bowl, come up with an ill-conceived plane: Put it in the freezer!
STEP 8: Remove from freezer and attempt to remove face; Fail.
STEP 9: Cook back of head at 350º for 35 minutes. Feel free to insert a large, rolled-up piece of foil between the bowl and the dough to create neck fat.
STEP 10: Reform another face, but this time do it over some parchment paper, dummy!
STEP 11: Finally, successfully remove the pieces of head.
STEP 12: Glue ‘em together. We used our patented Caramel Bonding™ (take the fancy caramel from your mom’s pantry, melt it in the microwave, and stick in between the head parts.
STEP 13: If you’re feeling sad that your dad has to work on Christmas, you could always leave him a heart-warming message.
And that’s how you make a festive Christmas head! (You’re welcome.)
Occasionally (as in, maybe 8 times a week), I will think of something from my past that will cause me to burst into uncontrollable laughter and disturb and confuse nearby friends and family.
Last night, I lost my mind at the thought of the following drawing, made by my brother, when he was many years younger:
I hadn’t recently seen this drawing or anything. I just remembered Louis’ rather intricate rendering of an Imperial AT-ST Chicken Walker from Star Wars, coupled with his “best guess” spelling of its name (I think you pronounce that “Chy-sin Wall-ser”) and couldn’t do anything but laugh for about 12 solid minutes. Seriously- I was making horrible gurgling noises and had tears rolling down my face as I tried to explain to an understandably alarmed Paul what was all of a sudden so funny.
It took awhile, but this picture explained everything.
Louis, my excellent brother, has created a new masterpiece. It’s called You’ll Believe Me. Harmonically was heavily inspired by the Beach Boys and Chopin. Give it a listen- I know you’ll be blown away.
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I’m simultaneous guilty of both overwhelming pride and mind-altering jealousy. BRAVO, Louie!
Man, I have a lot to do today. SO much to do- and all of it is going to cost money. (Stupid 100,000 mile service.) So, in lieu of a beautifully written story, I leave you with this photo I took of my brother and me.
Years ago, my brother Louis and I, along with our friend Yost, decided to try our hand at making a video using green screen. For those of you who don’t know, green screen (or, sometimes, blue screen) is a film technique used to make impossible situations look real. For example, in ET, Elliot and that creepy puppet didn’t actually fly through the air on a bicycle. The actor sat on a bike in front of a giant monochromatic screen, and was filmed pretending to ride. Then, that background color was removed, the image of the kid on the bike was placed in front of the night sky and- Voilá!- visual trickery!
To Louie, Yost and me, it seemed simple enough. So, we whipped out a piece of neon green poster board from Sav-On and some of Louie’s old Star Wars toys and went to town.
Unfortunately, none of us really knew any of the technical details, so we wound up with all kinds of shadows, which created unsightly blotches in our foreground image. The project was sadly abandoned.
But, ladies and gentlemen, I have just rediscovered it! It’s incomplete, some of the footage is missing, there is not story, and the images are blotchier than I even remembered! Please enjoy “Yost Wars!” in which our friend Yost takes his car out for a spin and, I guess, finds himself racing a T.I.E. fighter.
Today, the only lane available at the pool was in the deep end, right next to a water aerobics class. I think it was Treading Water For The Elderly or something. Aside from their musical choice (smooth jazz “hits” for solo guitar and drum machine) I had no problem with it. In fact, I kind of enjoyed being next to a bunch of chatty, retired women. That is, until the class started to fill up, pushing old ladies up against my lane line. This meant that every time I turned my head underwater, I was greeted by 15 overweight lower bodies. Never in my life have I seen so much jiggling, post-menopausal thighmeat.
The experience made me crave a little bit of youth, something I think we all need a dose of. So I share with you The Lemonade Stand, a video from the Cole Family Archives, circa July 1990 featuring me, my brother Louis, and the lemonade stand that my dad built for us. (I particularly enjoy Louis’ announcement about 30 seconds in.)
On Monday, Paul and I went to Disneyland, and it got me thinking about the time we went for your birthday in December of, I think, 1997. That would have made you 11, which sounds about right.
Mom and Dad were nice enough to let me bring my friend Lauren (recall her from the Halloween Finger Incident of 1998) in addition to the hordes of 10 and 11 year old boys. They were also nice enough to let Lauren and I go off by ourselves for a few hours. “But be back by eight,” Dad instructed us.
But you know how amusement parks are. It smelled like burgers, popcorn and the promise of something deep-fried, there was a dixieland band playing, and as many as 89 little girls dressed liked cinderella, most of them crying. If it wasn’t utter chaos, it was certainly enough mayhem for us to think Dad had said “eight-thirty,” instead. “‘Kay, great, sure!” Lauren and I said, running off in the direction of Splash Mountain. The plan was to ride Splash Mountain as many times as we could before we had to get back.
I think we must have ridden it 10 times. About the seventh time down the giant hill, I started to think maybe we’d better get back by eight just in case. “I can’t remember what he said, but I’m pretty sure it was eight-thirty, right?” I asked Lauren. “I think so.”
So we rode a few more times. When it was 8:35, we started running over to the meeting point in Fantasyland. By this point, I want you to know, I was already feeling guilty. We were five minutes late and you and your friends would be waiting for us. Five minutes of prime ride time for the birthday boy were being wasted. In fact, I was so intent on getting there in a speedy fashion that, as I navigated through the crowd, my swinging hand hit a little kid in the face (not hard) and I just kept on walkin’. (I’m sure I’ll end up writing him or her a letter later, too.)
But when were about 100 feet from the meeting place, I saw my dad looking for us. He didn’t look happy. He’d said eight. To save face in front of family and friends, I defended myself by repeating, “I swear I thought you said eight-thirty,” which was the truth, but not a very strong argument. I thought the guilt of being five minutes late was bad enough. But knowing I’d made you spend 35 minutes of your birthday waiting for me while dad and mom became increasingly more tense about where their teenage daughter could have disappeared to? That guilt was crushing.
I know it may not seem like the worst thing I could do to you, but for some reason, the thought of you sitting on a rock in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, planning with your friends where you want to go to next, if only your stupid sister would hurry up and get back is just so painfully adorable that it makes me sad. I guess it just means I like you. I’m sorry, Lou.
